The Conspirators
by Elve Saranel
Summary: Step one to improving your love life - interfere with someone else's.


Author's Note: There comes a time in every fan's life when there's only one thing left to do: write fan fiction. So here I am, hoping my two years in Creative Writing can help me out.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, just what I put them through.

Based on actual events. Seriously.

* * *

"I was not sleeping with her!"

Sora's exclamation punctured the air, effectively ending the playful banter Axel and I had been exchanging at the opposite end of the table. My parents had just sat down for desert, and thus began the awaited tirade. It was natural to expect arguments at the dinner table when a certain idiot's parents had caught him in bed with his girlfriend. Poor Axel was just visiting for New Year's, and I had hoped, for once, that I could have him over without bizarre, awkward occurrences. What a dream that was. Thank you, Sora, for dashing my hopes. At least Axel was used to the insanity that generally took place at my house. I could tell by the way he was snickering into his napkin.

Mom and Dad continued to pick at Sora as Axel and I attempted to choke down our cheesecake without laughing. I did pity my twin: there was no way Sora and Kairi were screwing around, and that was mainly because Sora was about as straight as a circle. He didn't know that yet, but I could tell by his strawberry shampoo and taste for tofu, even the tofu bacon Kairi so kindly cooked for us.

That dinner was one I'd never forget - even though I wasn't exactly there for the actual eating part. I had come home from a glow stick and Robek's run last night, only to be greeted by Axel making an imaginative pantomime of the vomiting flu over a plate of pasta.

"Axel...the hell..?"

"It's not bacon," he stated cryptically. Never being one to take Axel's word, I yanked the fork out of his hand and skewered a shred of what appeared to be ordinary bacon. My taste buds quickly informed me otherwise.

"Bah! Blaaah!" I made about as much a display as Axel had when he greeted me at the door before spitting the impostor meat back onto the plate. He was right - that most certainly was not bacon.

"What the fuck was that?!?" I demanded, tossing the fork in the sink as though it had caused my tongue's misfortune. Axel set the plate of mystery food on the table and pulled a slip of paper from his pocket.

"It's not real bacon, Roxas. Look at her shopping list." I snatched the page from him and sure enough, right bellow 'whole-grain spaghetti' was scrawled 'fake bacon.' "I think its tofu. Damn sneaky vegetarians screwing with my meat."

"Holy God! This is the dinner Kairi made?" Axel nodded. "I'm so glad I got home late."

"Sora liked it."

"That's proof he's gay."

"This fake-o replacement shit really freaks me out."

"I had vegetarian meatballs once..." I mused, bringing up a strongly repressed memory.

"That's some kind of contradiction."

"...They were inflatable. You could squish them down with your fork, and they'd pop back up again."

"Tofu should be banned. It's definitely more dangerous than pot," Axel declared.

"It's OK in miso soup..."

"Geez, you're as gay as your brother! Don't start borrowing his shampoo..."

"Don't you use Herbal Essences?"

"That's my secret shampoo, and I own it for very specific purposes, which you could not even begin to understand."

"And you cuddle with a giant pink Barbie quilt."

"That is NOT a Barbie quilt!...and it's not mine, it's Riku's."

"You're lying through your teeth, but at least we aren't as gay as he is." I answered with a laugh.

"Yeah, praise god we're bi. Speaking of which, how's your plan to hook him up with your brother going?

"Eh, I was more into it when I was drunk that one time, but Kairi's cooking has given me new inspiration. I won't have fake meat in my house."

"That's a definite."

The attack on Sora was still raging when desert finished. Unfortunately, by that point, Axel was sick of hearing my obsessed parents lecturing about STD's and ditched me to go pick up our friends for the mini-rave we would be having in my basement to celebrate New Year's - one of our stranger traditions. That's what the glow sticks were for. The Robek's run was just because I crave organic, vitamin-packed smoothies once in a while.

"You're leaving me with them?!?" I hissed at Axel as he grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.

"Yeah, basically. Kairi and Namine need a ride over here."

"Damn you! I have to stay and listen to this?" I jerked a thumb towards the table where Sora was still experiencing a verbal water boarding.

"Yep."

I trudged back to the table and made a less than stealthy attempt to sneak away with my plate, but my mother caught me first.

"Roxas, what do you think about this?" she inquired, turning her passionate interrogation on me. I glanced uncertainly between my parents' faces and Sora's desperate Bambi eyes. "Don't you think they're moving too fast?"

"Uh, yeah...I guess so," I mumbled, hoping for an easy exit.

"Roxas! Nothing was going on!" Sora whined, desperately trying to find someone to appeal to. No luck. Usually Dad would help him out in this kind of pinch, but there was a certain amount of hostility in the house to their coupling, especially after that dinner. "You know, Kairi gets the feeling you don't really like her now that we're together!"

A complete, and astonishingly awkward silence came over the room before I finally got up the courage to break it.

"We don't!" Truthfully, I had more of a problem with the girl's cooking than her relationship with my brother.

"How dare she think that?" My mother exclaimed, scandalized at the thought of being seen through. "I have been nothing but nice to her! I even ate that ridiculous dinner she made."

"It wasn't ridiculous; I liked it!" Sora protested, though it didn't do much for his argument. Insanity doesn't usually encourage trust. At this point, the confrontation finally got to be too much for Dad, who shrunk away from the table mumbling about newspapers to read and sports to watch.

After losing her back-up, Mom rose from the table with a sigh, and started cleaning up the kitchen in her usual routine, still lecturing Sora all the while.

* * *

AN: _The 'fake bacon' incident actually did happen to my friend. Her friend's parents really did catch him in bed with his girlfriend, I really have a guy friend who's obsessed with a giant pink Barbie quilt, and I really have held a mini-rave in my basement. My mother has also really served me inflatable vegetarian meatballs._


End file.
